The 250 people who attended the Greater Fayetteville Business Journal’s (GFBJ) inaugural Power Breakfast on Tuesday got an insider's look at what went into building two of the area’s most successful businesses and what happened when they decided to sell.

And while each of the four panelists had different takes on the nuts-and-bolts side of building a business, the common threads that emerged were less tangible, but perhaps most important -- building strong relationships, bringing talented employees onboard, and recognizing their role in the company’s success. 

Tuesday’s event — the first in the Power Breakfast Series — focused on entrepreneurs and acquirers, with the former owners of H&H Homes and Horne Brothers Construction sharing the stage with top officials of the companies that purchased them. The discussion was moderated by GFBJ Publisher Marty Cayton.

Ralph Huff discussed how he and his wife, Linda, grew H&H Homes into one of the largest private builders in the state and the carefully planned eight-year process that resulted in last year’s sale of the firm to Florida-based Dream Finders Homes. Panelist Jack Rostetter was president of H&H and now oversees the Carolinas region for Dream Finders, which became a publicly traded company earlier this year (NASDAQ: DFH).

As Pine Gate Renewables — a solar energy development and finance company — grew, so did its backlog of projects. As Pine Gate’s chief construction officer, Chris Dunbar oversaw the work of the subcontractors that did the building. With the project backlog only worsening, Dunbar told Tuesday’s audience, the Asheville-based firm decided to move its construction work in-house.

In May, Pine Gate acquired the solar division of Fayetteville-based Horne Brothers Construction and launched Blue Ridge Power, a turn-key solar energy development and management firm. Dunbar was named president of the Blue Ridge and Jack and Charles Horne joined the company’s leadership team.

Charles Horne spoke Tuesday about the decision to sell a division of Horne Brothers along with the challenges of separating the solar business from the rest of the company, which specializes in construction for the wireless-communications industry.

Another intangible quality all four panelists emphasized is patience.

In 2012, the Huffs began exploring the ideas of selling H&H Homes. Setting Ralph’s early 70s more or less as a target date, the couple began a very deliberate sale process that would last eight years.

The Horne Brothers deal developed more quickly, but Charles Horne told the audience that patience became a virtue.

“When we started down this path some six or eight months ago, started talking with Chris about this possibility, it was part of a process, a process that’s been going on for the past six or eight months,” Horne said. “It doesn’t happen overnight.”

An important part of the process, Horne said, was shepherding the employees through the sale and transition and recognizing their role in the company’s success.

“We did have a lot of young employees and a lot of people that had been instrumental in helping us achieve the level of success that we have achieved,” Horne said. “There were a number of employees that had incentive plans and things of that nature that carry on following the transaction into the new company.”

Being sure that the interest of employees was not being overlooked was a critical part of the process, Horne said.

“It’s an important portion of the longer term success of the company,” he said.

The panelists also discussed some of the ethical and moral challenges of running a successful business.

Rostetter said it was important to find the right balance for keeping the personal side separated from the business side.

“Do you think of your business as your baby, or do you think of it as an asset? You've got to separate the two,” he said.

That tension is even more pronounced when a sale is being considered, he said.

“It's a challenge because you do think of your company as your baby and all the employees are your family. And yet you're about to depart and sell them and you're looking for the greatest value. So there's almost a moral, ethical dilemma in that process.”

Rostetter, who is an Army veteran, said he advises business owners to think of their company first as an asset.

“Then you can layer in concerns for your people and for the process and doing the right thing morally,” he said.

Although he’s no longer building homes, the quick-witted Huff, who garnered his share of laughs from the crowd, is still very much in the real estate business. He’s one of the owners of Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Advantage, a far-flung real estate firm with offices across much of the eastern part of North Carolina as well as the Myrtle Beach area. Huff also is connected with Dream Finders and has 5,800 home lots under development for H&H Carolinas.

Responding to a question from the audience on the housing market, Huff appeared to remain bullish.

“There has not been the normal number of new homes built in a single year since 2006,” he said. “There’s a 5-million shortage of new homes out there now. Demand is going to be crazy for the next several years.”

Horne and Dunbar were equally bullish on the outlook for renewable energy.

A vital issue that both industries are facing is staffing, specifically a lack of qualified workers in the skilled trades.

“When I look at a few big problems — not the most urgent problems but the biggest problems — I think that the erosion of the blue-collar workforce in America is really problematic,” Dunbar said.

So what is the solution?

“I think we have to look to high school and community college education as a place to recruit talent,” he said. “It's not just people who don't want to work, you know. I hear that a lot. It's really not that. I think you have to inspire people to do certain jobs. You have to train them to do those jobs, and we need to develop more infrastructure on our side to be able to do that.”